If a question is downvoted on !nostupidquestions, is the question too stupid or was it not stupid enough?
If a question is downvoted on !nostupidquestions, is the question too stupid or was it not stupid enough?
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I downvote a lot of posts here because I don't think they're questions appropriate for this community. They're either loaded questions, opinions, obvious bait, or asklemmy material.
If this community is supposed to be the Lemmy version of r/nostupidquestions, the questions should be things that you think should know but don't. Things that might make you feel stupid asking.
A good question for this sub is "How often do I actually have to wash a hoodie?"
A bad question is "Why is [company] doing [something anti consumer]"
We get a LOT more of the latter here.
A similar problem would happen on r/ELI5 that drove me nuts. Originally the kinds of questions you were supposed to ask were things like “the origins of the Gulf war” or “the rules on how to play poker”. But instead there were too many questions that were like “what’s going on in my stomach when it growls”.
"Can someone explain [complicated geopolitical conflict] to me like I'm 5?" were my least favorite. At least pretend you tried to get the answer yourself
There should be a rule where someone actually has to explain it as if they were explaining it to a 5-year-old.
That's how the sub started. Answers were broken down into the most basic of analogies, it was great. But like most big subs, the rules got lax and it lost what made it special.
In my opinion, stricter posting rules make for a better community...as long as they're not arbitrary.
That might not be the best counter example. Now I'm interested in why exactly my stomach growls, and would probably need it explained in simple terms since I'm not a doctor.
I appreciate your work. (sincerely)
I just wish it did anything lol
Okay but like, how often do I actually have to wash a hoodie?
You should wash your hoodies (and jeans) when they are soiled, sweaty, or smelly; if they've been wet; if they have any sort of chemical on them.
Your situation will vary, and thus you must rely on your own judgement.
And basically always if someone you meet says you need to wash it.
Well yeah, if you go around people. If you don't know how to wash a hoodie, you're probably not a social butterfly. I do know how to wash a hoodie and I'm not a social butterfly, so I can't imagine what it's like not knowing and still trying to speak to someone.
I've been a teacher who had to tell their student it was time to wash their clothes, even if they weren't a social butterfly
I was just making a bad joke which correlated social skills to hoodie washing ability
Mate, that read exactly like a typical title on r/lifeprotips.
It's that good or bad?
It was a funny reminder of how mundane the typical "Life Pro-Tips" were.
LPT: always wash your clothes if they stink!
Ah, gotcha
I don't know!!! Someone should pose the question in a post
Sometimes.
Ah, I wasn't familiar with the subreddit, so I was just taking it as a free for all, so no question is out of place. Especially as lemmy is smaller, and lacks enough traffic in niche communities, it makes sense to have a bigger community for just answering whatever comes to mind.
But obviously there's issues with that, if the community was swamped it would make sense to have a stricter guideline.
I mean if this is gonna be a catch-all for every question ever, why do we need it when asklemmy exists?
Guidelines make communities unique. And why did we remake the sub if we weren't going to continue the spirit of it?
Totally. I was just being descriptive not prescriptive. I wasn't aware of the sub, and thought this was a fun lemmy thing, particularly suited to its smaller user base. And I've always associated asklemmy / askreddit with asking people's opinions, wanting a broad range of answers.
Looking at the guidelines, there doesn't seem to be any guidance about what kinds of questions beyond "ask away". The rules are mostly about no trolling, NSFW, etc. So, my comment was giving the perspective of someone who didn't associate the community with a reddit thing, and the message it's giving off is "ask any question" and that seemed cool to me. But I have no problem at all with it being more specific than that, having explicit guidelines or just a culture of up/down certain types of questions. Community guidelines and specialisation are good! But with lemmy smaller user base more broad communities can also be good!
I think most people don't like to see obviously leading/rhetorical questions, but I'm (personally) happy with seeing more abstract, whimsical, or interesting questions than just "stuff you feel like you should know but don't ". Looking at the top posts in the community, there are some "what is wage theft/a sovereign citizens/etc" which seem to be the classic "everyone else seems to know something I don't" situation. Then there's a bunch of fediverse, corporation and tech industry opinion questions, which definitely do seem more like an asklemmy thing. But "can you live on pickles?" or "would nuclear weapons be useful in a space battle" are the kinda questions I think are fun and I generally enjoy reading the responses and learn something, but they're not "stuffy you should be expected to know" (well, maybe the pickles answer is pretty obvious, but the reasoning isn't necessarily...)
The asklemmy ones are the annoying ones. It's less a question and more a conversation starter
There's one up now that's basically "can someone recommend some songs to me?"
I thought hard about whether to put it on ask lemmy, but didn't want to look stupid. The only advice I could find was this:
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others’ questions on various topics.
perhaps you need a refresher.... NO. STUPID. QUESTIONS.
Perhaps you completely missed the point if that's what you choose to reply with